Friday, March 09, 2007

"WOW!" albums

We all have albums that we like, but I think everyone has some albums that I would think of as "WOW!" albums. What I am thinking of are albums that may be great, original or you might just hear them at the right moment. Yet for whatever reason these are albums that just have a huge impact on you when you first hear them. I remember hearing Iron Maiden's "The number of the beast" for the first time when I was like 14 and it just blew me away. The music was and is so incredible and it really impressed me and drew me in. There are a lot of albums that I would say are good or great, but not a lot that have had that kind of impact on me. Don't laugh, but for me Twisted Sister's "Stay Hungry" was a WOW album at the time I first heard it. In 1984 I was listening to the radio a lot and knew their two big singles, but hearing the entire album just struck me. It's not one of my favorite albums of all time and I don't like it as much as I once did, but it was important to me at the time and I still remember that feeling of awe. The whole energy and the importance of every song just struck a nerve at that point. When I was first getting into speed metal I would say that Metallica's Master of puppets, Slayer's reign in blood and Anthrax's Spreading the disease had a similar effect on me and actually all three of those albums still do. I didn't get into Led Zeppelin or Rush until I was 19, but I remember hearing Rush's 2112 and Led Zeppelin's Houses of the holy for the first time. This was around the same time and I heard both on a walkman after buying them. It just seemed so amazing to me to really hear the depth of their music and what I had been missing for years. Those two albums in some ways changed how I listened to music because they got me to try to listen more deeply and not just to what's on the surface. There are many more albums like this for me, but I will stop for now. Anyway I will quit rambling and just ask....

24 Comments:

For me, it's Metallica's black album. Until then, I wasn't really into music at all. I had a few pop cassettes (that I won't admit to)mostly because the songs were popular at school dances or whatever, but when that album came out everything changed. I loved it so much I checked into their older catalogue, then into ther influences which got me into 60s and 70s rock, which got me into punk and from there the whole shebang. Now I can honestly say I'm a music junkie. Sounds strange to say that Metallica got me into jazz or hip hop but they did- and so much more!

TS Stay Hungry was a wow album for me, so was Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil, as was Metallica's Master of Puppets, Megadeth's Peace Sells, Maiden's Killers right on through to No Prayer for the Dying...all wowed me...Slayer's Reign in Blood, Mastodon's Leviathan, Isis' In the Absence of Truth and so on... I love getting that wow feeling, particularly when some undiscovered talent creeps up on a promo and makes you go wow!

The first WOW album for me is (and this is REALLY going to show my age here!!!) Grand Funk's We're An American Band. My first cousin, Craig Frost, played keyboards for them and gave me a gold vinyl pressing of that album for Christmas back when it came out. I was in like 1st grade...but it completely changed my life!!!!

It was like the Heavens opened up and a light shone down on me or something...here IT was, that thing that I had been looking for all my life...granted at that point, my life was all of 6 or 7 years, but still!!!! It started me on a life-long love of the harder stuff. I remember playing it for my friends in Cub Scouts and they all looked at me like I was insane...they were still listening to whatever it was that you listen to in 1st grade.

The next big WOW album for me was Rush 2112. That was another one that completely reshaped music for me.

The first Van Halen...WOW!!!! I can't tell you how many hours of air guitar that one got when it first came out!!! :)

Diary of a Madman and Heaven and Hell were both HUGE WOW albums for me that moved me more into METAL!!!

Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast...I saw them in concert on Piece of Mind tour but couldn't get the song Run to the Hills out of my head and went right down the next day and bought it!!!

I'm showing off my age here, but the first WOW album I remember is "Beatles '65". I'd been a Beatlemaniac for a couple of years, but this was the first album of theirs that I owned(thanks to my DJ father, btw). I had the same reaction to "Abbey Road", which I consider to be their best album.

OK, with the death of Brad Delp yesterday, I need to add the first Boston album to my list. Up until then, I don't think I had ever been so taken by a band's debut album. I also had the good fortune of seeing them tour with Sammy Hagar as the opening act.

The recently reviewed Mastery on my blog was a wow one and Viking's Man Of Straw. I just recently heard some 30 second clips of a band called Myriads which sounds unbelievable and am waiting to be wowed when they arrive. And Lastly, Ahab's Call of the wreached sea.

"So, in closing, fuck you METAL MARK. Fuck you, fuck Lynch Mob, and fuck your shitty website!”
“I don't know who this METAL MARK is, but I know better than to waste my time checking out anything else written by this asshole”
-Mike